In hospitals, nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, patients typically receive a number of different medications which are administered on a continuing basis. Preferably, each patient has a personalized container for the storing of his or her own medications. This practice simplifies dispensing of the medications and also aids in verifying the actual medications dispensed. One manufacturer of such medication containers, or storage trays, is Artromick International, Columbus, Ohio. Artromick International produces a variety of medication storing and dispensing equipment, including cassettes with storage bins and trays, as well as medication carts having multiple slots of a standard dimension for retaining various combinations of cassettes with storage bins, trays and shelves used to store the medications and equipment needed for the patients. Other systems do not utilize cassettes for retaining trays and storage bins.
The medication for a single patient typically does not require the storage area of an entire storage tray in a medication cart. Instead, the patient's medications are stored in a single bin of lesser dimension, several of which can be positioned side-to-side in the standard dimension space normally occupied by a tray. The single bin can be inserted in a mating slot built into the medication cart or cassette to provide a secure storage space for the medications. However, a medication cart or cassette having individual bin slots requires that that space in the cart or cassette be dedicated to that function of transporting only individual patient's medication bins. This defeats the purpose of standard dimension slots in the medication cart or cassette which allows interchanging of trays and shelves to maximize efficiency of use of the cart in the particular application.
In use, individual patient bins are stored in this type of medication cart by positioning the bins side-to-side on a storage tray, the tray then being retained in a slot in the medication cassette, the cassette being retained in the medication cart. To access a patient's bin, the tray is pulled from the medication cassette, exposing the bin contents. Unfortunately, opening the single tray also allows access to the medications in the bins of other patients. The access so provided creates a risk that the other medications will be accidentally removed from their proper storage site.